Qalandiya

Qalandya: A statistician had appealed for help in persuading the
army to let him through the check-post with what seemed to us a
permit that was entirely in order. But the army was adamant that
his permit must have a date of issue other than that of 14 October.
Why? Just because! A call finally helped, and the man had gone on
his way.

Surda: A quiet crowd of about 30 or 40, many of them seeming to be
students, waited -- for what?-- at the top of the hill nearest to
Ramallah. A hundred metres down the hill, two IDF jeeps stood just
below two yellow taxis that were parked head to head across the
width of the road so that they blocked it to the passage of any car
in either direction. No one comes or goes, closure has been in
force since last Thursday. There are no exceptions at all, the
soldiers say. The drivers of the two taxis come to complain that
the soldiers have confiscated their car keys and their papers and
that they had been stuck since three o'clock. It was the second day
running that this had happened, they said. A third jeep appeared,
circled the other two, the soldiers held a mini-conference in the
road. The third jeep sped off. Two minutes later, the other two
turned about and head down the hill and out of sight around the
bend. A cry of jubilation went up from the waiting crowd and they
were all off, running, walking, hobbling, in a stream that seemed
not to let up as word got round that the road was open -- for how
long? It was the pedestrians' hour, for almost no vehicles, or
almost no vehicles could take advantage of the sudden and totally
inexplicable lifting of the closure. By immobilizing the two taxis
the army had ensured that whether or not the road block was manned,
it remained in place -- a genuinely home-made Palestinian road
block! An hour later, the drivers reported that the army had
returned and had thrown tear gas into the crowd of pedestrians. At
8pm one of the taxi drivers called to say that keys and papers had
just been returned.

Back in Qalandya, one of the soldiers was roughing up a man whose
ID had been confiscated and had been sitting there for several
hours waiting for it to be returned. The physical abuse stopped as
we neared. A passing super-market worker told us that that
particular solider was consistently vicious in his behaviour. He
said he would submit a detailed complaint. The ID card was returned
within only a few minutes of our arrival, and shortly after
complained about the soldier's behaviour. The soldiers would bend
no rule nor take any humanitarian initiative: a mother of five who
lives in the Old City and works in Ramallah for the Palestinian
radio service had forgotten her blue ID card at home. She did have
other cards, one of which -- from the radio -- gave her name and
photograph, another -- her name and ID number -- all in Hebrew. But
the young soldier was at pains to point out that "anyone"
could have forged these cards. The woman tried to contact her
husband, but he was unreachable. It was dark by now and the woman
was getting more and more upset. A suggestion that a female soldier
search the woman was rejected. The soldier was adamant that without
her ID, the woman would not be allowed to pass. An hour later, some
people brought her ID.

A lorry driver had his blue ID confiscated the day before, no
reason given, by a passing jeep which sped off before he could
write down the number. A woman, clutching a toddler, had her orange
ID taken from her as she tried to cross the quarry (Tora Bora)
parallel to the road. Both were only too well aware that without an
ID they had no legal existence. Both had experience of trying to
replace a "lost" card. They were beseeching the soldiers,
whose attitude was "Why is it our business! He can't tell us
which jeep it was. Her card was taken by a quarry patrol who have
nothing to do with us!" The line of cars and trucks was now
over ninety long, barely inching forward. It apparently took a full
two hours to go through the checkpoint. At the southern end, the
continued closure of Beitunia, which normally caters to the big
goods lorries, produced dangerous traffic jams with every driver
for himself and not a vestige of policing.